Big East OOC thread '25/'26

[nelsonmuntz]

You’re right there’s no other real option now. But might as well vent about it here not like the Big East isn’t a problem right now anyways.

There are not many reasons why UConn made the radical move to the Big East. But nowadays, those few reasons are already diminishing.

How does being in a league with East Carolina and Tulane help?

 

[DFW HOYA]

They played at Mcdonough on campus yesterday during finals week. I think it only seats 2k and an impossible place to get to for non-student fans given parking situation. But students should have packed that arena. Double header with the women.

Georgetown's campus has no surface parking.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

They played at Mcdonough on campus yesterday during finals week. I think it only seats 2k and an impossible place to get to for non-student fans given parking situation. But students should have packed that arena. Double header with the women.

Glorified high school gym that seats 2,500. I mean come on, you're in a metro area of 6.4 million people.

 

[TRest]

Ed Cooley is the last person to realize Georgetown isn’t a national brand.

 

[shizzle787]

Games remaining:


P4 games:

Villanova @ Wisconsin (12/19)
St. John's vs. Kentucky (Atlanta) (12/20)
Butler vs. Northwestern (12/20)

Cupcake games:

Butler vs. NJIT (12/22)
Georgetown vs. Coppin State (12/22)
Creighton vs. Utah Tech (12/22)
St. John's vs. Harvard (12/23)


The league sits at 20-27 overall against the P4. To beat last year's winning percentage of 43.9%, we need to win two of the final three contest agains the P4 (very doable).

We also need to take care of business against the four cupcakes. If we do, we will only have six losses against teams outside of the P4, which is very impressive.


With regards to bids, if we go 6-1 the rest of the way, I believe we will end up anywhere between 3-5 bids depending on what happens in the league. Ultimately I believe we end up with four bids.

Field prognostication based solely on resume so far:

Lock: UConn
Should be in: St. John's, Seton Hall
Work left to do: Butler, Villanova

Out: Marquette, Creighton, Xavier, DePaul, Georgetown, Providence

I'm going to play predictor here for a moment and say the league wins six of the final seven with Nova being the only loss.

Here is how I see the final standings:

1. UConn 18-2 (28-3)
2. St. John's 15-5 (23-8)*
3. Seton Hall 13-7 (23-8)*
4. Villanova 13-7 (21-10)*
5. Butler 11-9 (20-11)
6. Creighton 10-10 (16-15)
7. Xavier 8-12 (16-15)
8. Providence 7-13 (14-17)
9. Marquette 6-14 (11-20)
10. Georgetown 6-14 (14-17)
11. DePaul 3-17 (11-20)

*= NCAA tournament teams

Side bar: Nova beats Butler in a win and your in BET quarterfinal

Tournament seeds:

UConn: 1
St. John's: 6
Seton Hall: 10
Villanova: 11 (Dayton)

Butler: first four out

 

[HooperScooper]

1. UConn 18-2 (29-2)*

Wouldn't that be 28-3?

 

[ucp990411]

Frustrating how poor the league has performed OOC. Can't lose a home game or more than 3 road games if we want to be a 1 seed.

I am confident however

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Games remaining:


P4 games:

Villanova @ Wisconsin (12/19)
St. John's vs. Kentucky (Atlanta) (12/20)
Butler vs. Northwestern (12/20)

Cupcake games:

Butler vs. NJIT (12/22)
Georgetown vs. Coppin State (12/22)
Creighton vs. Utah Tech (12/22)
St. John's vs. Harvard (12/23)


The league sits at 20-27 overall against the P4. To beat last year's winning percentage of 43.9%, we need to win two of the final three contest agains the P4 (very doable).

We also need to take care of business against the four cupcakes. If we do, we will only have six losses against teams outside of the P4, which is very impressive.


With regards to bids, if we go 6-1 the rest of the way, I believe we will end up anywhere between 3-5 bids depending on what happens in the league. Ultimately I believe we end up with four bids.

Field prognostication based solely on resume so far:

Lock: UConn
Should be in: St. John's, Seton Hall
Work left to do: Butler, Villanova

Out: Marquette, Creighton, Xavier, DePaul, Georgetown, Providence

I'm going to play predictor here for a moment and say the league wins six of the final seven with Nova being the only loss.

Here is how I see the final standings:

1. UConn 18-2 (29-2)*
2. St. John's 15-5 (23-8)*
3. Seton Hall 13-7 (23-8)*
4. Villanova 13-7 (21-10)*
5. Butler 11-9 (20-11)
6. Creighton 10-10 (16-15)
7. Xavier 8-12 (16-15)
8. Providence 7-13 (14-17)
9. Marquette 6-14 (11-20)
10. Georgetown 6-14 (14-17)
11. DePaul 3-17 (11-20)

*= NCAA tournament teams

Side bar: Nova beats Butler in a win and your in BET quarterfinal

Tournament seeds:

UConn: 1
St. John's: 6
Seton Hall: 10
Villanova: 11 (Dayton)

Butler: first four out

I think you are overrating Creighton and Marquette by 4 and 3 wins respectively. I think Xavier, Providence and Georgetown will pick up the difference. Seton Hall may win 14 Big East games. That team is pretty good.

When you look at the high level W/L numbers, the Big East should be closer to the other leagues in the power rankings. It is a little puzzling why it is so far behind.

 

[Scrutineer]

If anyone thinks this situation is better than playing Houston, Iowa State, and Texas Tech or Louisville, UVA, and UNC in conference you’re not being honest with yourself.

This is not the old big east and it isn’t fun to play bad teams for 3 months out of the season.

I agree at the moment about the level of competition within our league and agree with Chief that we need an aggressive commissioner.

Maybe I'm missing something about our media rights deal because, while it's nice that the value increased, aren't we as fans and viewers underwriting a major portion through the subscription fees we're paying for the streaming services?

 

[superjohn]

I agree at the moment about the level of competition within our league and agree with Chief that we need an aggressive commissioner.

Maybe I'm missing something about our media rights deal because, while it's nice that the value increased, aren't we as fans and viewers underwriting a major portion through the subscription fees we're paying for the streaming services?

All the major conferences have games on the streaming platforms along with the major professional sports leagues.

 

[Scrutineer]

All the major conferences have games on the streaming platforms along with the major professional sports leagues.

I'm aware of that. My point was we've been told our media rights deal increased payouts to the schools but some of the funds for the payouts are now coming from the pockets of the fans paying for the streaming services.
In the past all the money in the payments to the schools was coming from the networks who got it from their advertisers rather than the schools' fans. If I'm misunderstanding please clarify it for me.

 

[aceboon]

Butler's loss to Boise St not looking too bad after Boise upset St Marys. Not sure what happened in their opener vs a D2 team but they're much better than that.

 

[FightOnCT]

How does being in a league with East Carolina and Tulane help?

Read my recent reply

 

[freescooter]

Okay. So why dont you ask Connecticut to return to the American conference? We all know thats the only realistic option on the table right now.

So That's it. You take the American or the Big East. The P4 FB confernces have show time and time again that they have NO interest in UCONN.

So I ask you - If you know the best option available right now is the Big East Conference then why dont you do your best to hype the league? The league that gave us a boost when we needed it the most and allowed us to return to top tier?

Hating on the league that gave you a hand when times were rough isnt the way to go. It makes us look bad as fan base and as a conference partner.

(And ofcourse - people like you are now going to claim in hindsight that Uconn was always going to win 2 National Championships with Danny Hurley even if they stayed in the American which we all know deep down is complete b.s! The American took UConn out of its geographic region and was slowly destroying UConn Athletics.)

The goal is not the American. That is a strawman. The goal isa P4. You know that. But you continue to pretend that we are arguing for something we are not.

And i might suggest that a run of really bad coaches is what was hurting UConn athletics, although you might want to tell Geno and Jim Penders. Oh and wait. We won a national Championship out of the American Conference. Oh wait again!! Dan Hurley said we would have won in 2023 no matter what confeence we were in.

You Big East fan boys should just admit that you don’t give a darn about UConn athletics. You care about basketball. You’d probably would become Ysle fans if they suddenly jumped to the top 5 and UConn rehired Ollie

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The goal is not the American. That is a strawman. The goal isa P4. You know that. But you continue to pretend that we are arguing for something we are not.

And i might suggest that a run of really bad coaches is what was hurting UConn athletics, although you might want to tell Geno and Jim Penders. Oh and wait. We won a national Championship out of the American Conference. Oh wait again!! Dan Hurley said we would have won in 2023 no matter what confeence we were in.

You Big East fan boys should just admit that you don’t give a darn about UConn athletics. You care about basketball. You’d probably would become Ysle fans if they suddenly jumped to the top 5 and UConn rehired Ollie

Thank you very much for this post. It never occurred to anyone in the UConn universe that being in the Big 10 might be better than being in the Big East. You are truly a genius of conference realignment.

 

[ecasadoSBU]

The goal is not the American. That is a strawman. The goal isa P4. You know that. But you continue to pretend that we are arguing for something we are not.

And i might suggest that a run of really bad coaches is what was hurting UConn athletics, although you might want to tell Geno and Jim Penders. Oh and wait. We won a national Championship out of the American Conference. Oh wait again!! Dan Hurley said we would have won in 2023 no matter what confeence we were in.

You Big East fan boys should just admit that you don’t give a darn about UConn athletics. You care about basketball. You’d probably would become Ysle fans if they suddenly jumped to the top 5 and UConn rehired Ollie

We don't care about the "goal". We all have the same goal for UConn of competing at the highest level at a P4 conference some day! but your or any goal is meaningless b.s if you cannot for one second understand that joining a P4 Football conference requires an invitation to be extended to UConn by one of those conferences. How many times do we need to explain that? As of the past 13 years not a single Power-5/4 Football Conference has extended an invitiation to UConn. They don't think UConn is worth the expense. The amount of programs that have gotten invited before UConn should let you know that the P4 doesn't want us

Right now. The only other conferences that are willing to an extend an invitation to UConn would be the American and the MAC. The Big East is a better multi-sport conference than the American and the MAC.

Therefore, that makes the Big East, right now, the best option for UConn. Support and hype the conference that, right now, is the best option for UConn!

Is that hard to understand @freescooter?

So a bunch of you that spend your time hating and crapping on the Big East on this board should direct your efforts sending emails to conference commissioners of the P4 requesting invitation. Maybe thats a better use of your time...

 

[Icehawk]

I love the BE and it’s just fine for us. The P4 brings a lot of baggage we don’t want or need all for a few (ok, a lot) more bucks? Meh.

 

[NJHusky]

I'm aware of that. My point was we've been told our media rights deal increased payouts to the schools but some of the funds for the payouts are now coming from the pockets of the fans paying for the streaming services.
In the past all the money in the payments to the schools was coming from the networks who got it from their advertisers rather than the schools' fans. If I'm misunderstanding please clarify it for me.

Not 100% true. Your cable bill has gone up every year because rights fees go up too

 

[John]

I love the BE and it’s just fine for us. The P4 brings a lot of baggage we don’t want or need all for a few (ok, a lot) more bucks? Meh.

what baggage?

 

[AllHusky]

I love the BE and it’s just fine for us. The P4 brings a lot of baggage we don’t want or need all for a few (ok, a lot) more bucks? Meh.

🤣

 

[RuffRuff]

The goal is not the American. That is a strawman. The goal isa P4. You know that. But you continue to pretend that we are arguing for something we are not.

And i might suggest that a run of really bad coaches is what was hurting UConn athletics, although you might want to tell Geno and Jim Penders. Oh and wait. We won a national Championship out of the American Conference. Oh wait again!! Dan Hurley said we would have won in 2023 no matter what confeence we were in.

You Big East fan boys should just admit that you don’t give a darn about UConn athletics. You care about basketball. You’d probably would become Ysle fans if they suddenly jumped to the top 5 and UConn rehired Ollie

I think most here would openly do jumping jacks to escape the BE for a P4. If you’re not onboard there your head is in the sand.

 

[gtcam]

Okay. So why dont you ask Connecticut to return to the American conference? We all know thats the only realistic option on the table right now.

So That's it. You take the American or the Big East. The P4 FB confernces have show time and time again that they have NO interest in UCONN.

So I ask you - If you know the best option available right now is the Big East Conference then why dont you do your best to hype the league? The league that gave us a boost when we needed it the most and allowed us to return to top tier?

Hating on the league that gave you a hand when times were rough isnt the way to go. It makes us look bad as fan base and as a conference partner.

(And ofcourse - people like you are now going to claim in hindsight that Uconn was always going to win 2 National Championships with Danny Hurley even if they stayed in the American which we all know deep down is complete b.s! The American took UConn out of its geographic region and was slowly destroying UConn Athletics.)

UConn joining the NBE does much more for the NBE than it does for UConn. The NBE suddenly gets 2 recent National Champions in basketball, a standout baseball program, two re-energized soccer sides etc.
The NBE brings nothing to the table in comparative to the P4s
Uconn owes squat to the NBE - the only move that the NBE could have made was to add UConn

 

[Hoophound]

We need to get into a P4, but I still love the Big East. I wish we could make P4 money and continue to play basketball in the Big East somehow. I love the old school rivalries with SJU, PC and Nova. It just isn't something that will work out for us long term and I accept that.

 

[lonsharkin51]

As Cuse, BCU and Pitt might tell you, be careful what you wish for. Think that extra P5 money makes them feel better about their irrelevant hoops programs? There’s no reason we couldn’t suffer the same fate.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

We need to get into a P4, but I still love the Big East. I wish we could make P4 money and continue to play basketball in the Big East somehow. I love the old school rivalries with SJU, PC and Nova. It just isn't something that will work out for us long term and I accept that.

Agreed - and if/when we move on from the BE we can keep annual games against BE rivals. The only thing really lacking would be the BE tournament; we could offset that "loss" by continuing to play profitable non-con games at MSG.